I have suspected my stuff has been thrown away by him. I emailed him asking that Q. I texted him the same Q. No answer.

So I decided that on this next exchange of the kids, I would "hold hostage" their stuff until I had my answer.

Backfire. Big time. I know better than to engage in games with him. His evilness wins every time.

What he did was, without my permission (court order that he has be be given permish to go to my home - even just drive by it) he came by. I was not home. Since I wasn't home, he directed the kids to go inside thru the garage (code). I would NEVER go inside his home! I even lived there! He has NEVER lived here. It is NOT his home.

The kids got their stuff.

I pulled up just as they were leaving.

Can you imagine if I was home? If I was inside engaged in whatever activity you can imagine (not that that's happening currently, but in the future, it sure will!!)? And the kids WALKED IN unplanned, unannounced!

First, it is silly to use tehe children or their thiongs as pawns in an adult game of chess. In a divorce a court mayy require assets to be turned over. If they are not, you file a motion for contempt. If they are destroyed, you seek compensation.

IF you hadn't held the kids stuff "hostage". He's not allowed in your home, but then, he can always say he wasn't in your home...the kids were. And since he only went there to get what you were holding...it would look worse on you because you put the kids in the middle. You kept their things in retaliation for yours. And the kids shouldn't be in the middle of any of this.

You guys are certainly correct. I should not have held their stuff hostage. SO very luckily for me, my plan was not outed. Nobody knows that I attempted that game, and I will never try such a thing again.

A little more background: Every exchange day thus far, a text between he and I occurs about when and where to pick up their sports equipment and blankets (and in this case, meds). Never have either of us just shown up to the other's home, gone inside and got these items. In fact, there was a day a few months ago where he did not answer my text and the kids went without their things until he finally brought them over, at my request, with my permish.

I never want him to think he can waltz into my home (or have the kids do so) with out my permission. It is written in the court order that we both follow protocol. He did not. In this case, it has nothing to do with my intention since my intentions were never spoken to him.

My lawyer fired off a letter to his about the whereabouts of my stuff. As far as the breaking of the court order (yet again) NOTHING will happen and I'm sure he'll continue to find ways to break the rules.

[quote]IF you hadn't held the kids stuff "hostage". He's not allowed in your home, but then, he can always say he wasn't in your home...the kids were. And since he only went there to get what you were holding...it would look worse on you because you put the kids in the middle. You kept their things in retaliation for yours. And the kids shouldn't be in the middle of any of this. [/quote]

[quote]I have suspected my stuff has been thrown away by him. I emailed him asking that Q. I texted him the same Q. No answer.

So I decided that on this next exchange of the kids, I would "hold hostage" their stuff until I had my answer.

Backfire. Big time. I know better than to engage in games with him. His evilness wins every time.

What he did was, without my permission (court order that he has be be given permish to go to my home - even just drive by it) he came by. I was not home. Since I wasn't home, he directed the kids to go inside thru the garage (code). I would NEVER go inside his home! I even lived there! He has NEVER lived here. It is NOT his home.

The kids got their stuff.

I pulled up just as they were leaving.

Can you imagine if I was home? If I was inside engaged in whatever activity you can imagine (not that that's happening currently, but in the future, it sure will!!)? And the kids WALKED IN unplanned, unannounced!

HE FURTHERMORE HAD MY D12 GO INTO MY HOME (HAVING HER FURTHER BREAK COURT ORDER FOR HIM) WITH OUT PERMISSION!

Can you imagine that you're in your home, you take a shower, you walk to the family room totally naked for whatever, and you are surprised by xxx (put any named or un named person here) walking into your door?!!? It is a total violation of privacy!!

I imagine the opposite. I have the kids walk into HIS home unannounced and without permission, and he is rolling in the sack with his new girlfriend!!!! I would NEVER put my kids into that position of discovery! It is reckless and irresponsible at best, it breaks the court order at worse.

How is this domestic violence? It is a total disregard of MY set boundaries, not to mention the boundaries spelled out by the LAW!

If you have to ask this question, I seriously beg you NOT to post here again.

HE FURTHERMORE HAD MY D12 GO INTO MY HOME (HAVING HER FURTHER BREAK COURT ORDER FOR HIM) WITH OUT PERMISSION!

Can you imagine that you're in your home, you take a shower, you walk to the family room totally naked for whatever, and you are surprised by xxx (put any named or un named person here) walking into your door?!!? It is a total violation of privacy!!

I imagine the opposite. I have the kids walk into HIS home unannounced and without permission, and he is rolling in the sack with his new girlfriend!!!! I would NEVER put my kids into that position of discovery! It is reckless and irresponsible at best, it breaks the court order at worse.

How is this domestic violence? It is a total disregard of MY set boundaries, not to mention the boundaries spelled out by the LAW!

If you have to ask this question, I seriously beg you NOT to post here again. [/quote]

Again, what does this have to do with "violence". Did he come in and beat the crap out of you? No. He violated a CO and you misued the court system if you did it under the guide of domestic violence.

I beg you not to post here again....leave this forum to spouses who actually experience violence.

Do you have a courrt order barring your D12 from entering your home ? If not, then a court order was not broken when your daughter entered your home (with the code that , presumably, you gave her !)

Is the divorce final ? If not, why don't you go to the marital home and get your stuff ? [/quote]

Finz, the problem is orders of protection or whatever they are called in different states are issued without blinking an eye and all of a sudden the STBX becomes "abusive".

It's a total disservice and takes away resources that should be used on real cases, because obviously, domestic violence is very real.

I blame this on the lawyers, because if the can paint the STBX as an "abuser", it gives them a big leg up in court. It is CERTAINLY encouraged by lawyers that people like the OP do these things because it drags the case out (more $$) and helps with the win.

It's a big business in my county, where 80% of all divorces have OP's attached to them.

It's insantity, because "abuse" is painted with a very wide brush. Is physical violence abuse? Certainly. Is there such a thing as "verbal abuse" that falls into orders of protection? Yes, and that is wrong. If someone is saying something to you, you have 2 choices. Listen or not. If someone is beating the piss out of you, you don't have a choice and need protection. And unfortunately, they are usually taken out against men rather than women, for a variety of reasons.

Yes Dad I agree with the theory of "verbal"abuse not being abuse, but the reality of it is that verbal abuse can be as damaging as the actual physical abuse. That is how my stbx keep me and our children in line and if I "fell out of line" then I would get the physical abuse even worse . If you have someone towering over you and telling you what they would or could do to you ,beleive me it is as bad having them pound on you, it is all the same fear from the same source.I know because I lived with both for 23 years and the older he got the less he actually hit me but he made sure the threat stay alive and it was hell living everyday with the looming cloud of doom over my head knowing he could go physco at any time over any issue. The last time was in Feb (this year) and it was all over me taking our son to sub way and spending less then $12.00 while stbx was at the bar. Now as for nolonger, I think you are abusing the court system and unless there is more to the story then you have exsplained you should stop using the abused card and leave your children out of it and just be a parent to them and deal with the x on your own....

Verbal abuse is more than just one person yelling or name calling another. It is a sytematic brain washing method used by people with personality disorders for the sole purpose of controlling another.

Obviously, I'm not a degreed expert, but even more obvious is the ignorance of the responses on my topic here. You simply do not know what you are talking about.

I'm not saying that to be a dig at you. I'm saying that like a mother would to her 5 year old son when he tries to explain to her that they sky is green, not blue.

My simple question at the beginning of this thread was without context, history or anything other that would indicate how abusive my x has been to me in the past. This latest incident was simply another straw upon the proverbial camel's back. You know not what you're speaking of.

Case in point. I received an email response by my X tonight, after a weekend of harassing text messages, that starts out with , "You pathetic, controlling, manipulative biotch." and it gets much worse from there. The email was in response to my request for a specific holiday-sharing request that was written politically correctly with absolutely no abusiveness in it's nature.

So what if he's not beating the crap out of me? NO ONE should have to live their life with constant harassment from another. period.

Do you have a courrt order barring your D12 from entering your home ? If not, then a court order was not broken when your daughter entered your home (with the code that , presumably, you gave her !)

Is the divorce final ? If not, why don't you go to the marital home and get your stuff ? [/quote]

I didn't say it was domestic violence. It's domestic abuse. I did go to the marital home to get my stuff. It's no longer there! That was the question - what do I do about that?

Truth is, I asked that question 3 abuse incidents ago. I've got bigger problems now and stuff is just stuff. I can let that go.

For now, though, I refuse to live my life with constant (twice daily) harassing text messages and emails that require simple yes or no answers that are filled with hate and rage not only against me, but my mother, brother, dad, sister. Sure, a simple answer would be to ignore it and for the most part I do. But when the problem is trying to schedule Christmas visitation, I am forced to read through all that crap just to be able to negotiate the holiday! I should not have to do that. Especially when this man has previously threatened to drown me in a toilet - a crime a man up here was recently convicted for killing his wife. I take verbal assaults very seriously. I'm sure the dead wife was previously threatened verbally and no one took her seriously either.

Since he has made threats in writing, you could easily use those to obtain an RO that would keep him X distance from you. And with having such an RO, you could get the court to place restrictions on exchanges of the kids...like the exchange taking place at the police dept. or somesuch. Especially combined with all the text messages and emails with the hate and rage remarks. People have gotten ROs with a lot less, sometimes with nothing. But you actually have this stuff in writing, so it should be a very simple matter to obtain one.

Then, if he were to come NEAR you home, he could be picked up for contempt. However, if he came by again to get things you were withholding of the kids', it could ultimately backfire on you. So you have to play it completely above-board and let him engage in all the nastiness alone.

Java - yes, I have to agree with you. Those who abuse the system have made it nearly impossible for those of us who are continually having their rights violated to seek justice.

AH, the police have suggested a restraining order and told me that my evidence is enough to prove it's needed. However, my lawyer does not want me to go that route. Luckily, although I've got my eyes open for it, I don't think my X would ever act out and hurt me physically. Rather, I see him as the type that if he were to snap, whether I have an RO or not, he'd find me and kill me. But I know him as too much of a [censored] to do that. He's all talk. The lawyer said that the courts up here do not like ROs in divorce just because of the people who have abused that resource. He fears I'd hurt my case, or I'd have bias against me before the evidence is even evaluated.

New developement, tho, is that we will be using a mediator and looking into going for more custody to protect the kids from his outbursts.

Totally funny thing that crapstinks thinks I'm Canadian! Ha! What a stupid conclusion to make from just a couple of posts. Just goes to show his hatred for not only women, but for anyone that isn't just like him.

Advice to you, buddy. Go f*ck yourself. Nobody else will and you only want your own company anyway.

The article below contains comments from academics who are exposingthe true nature of the state's inclinations towards our children.

The state already employs hundreds of thousands of women to do their dirtywork of undermining the family based on marriage.

They now are turning their attention to bribe innocent little children to dothe same.

The NSPCC admitted three years ago in the most extensive study ever donethat the situation that represented most risk of abuse for children was tobe found in an arrangement where they were not being brought up by theirbiological and married mother and father living together.

In fact they clearly showed that the arrangement favoured by court andsocial welfare policies was by far the most dangerous.

This situation - where their mother lives with a boyfriend and often withthe boyfriends children - allows the child to be sexually and physicallyabused and neglected BECAUSE the husband is not there to protect thechildren.

What they found was that the primary physical abusers were mothers and thesexual abusers were the mother's boyfriend and the unrelated children throwntogether in an artificial and volatile intimate situation.

So clearly did they show this that the links to their report, "CHILDMALTREATMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM - A Study of the Prevalence of ChildAbuse and Neglect " no longer access it or anything on their website.

Unfortunately for the NSPCC I took the trouble back then in Nov 2001 to copydown the relevant chapters and reproduce them below the Sunday times articlefor anyone to read and see that these state employees are now lying abouttheir own report.

Please keep the report safe and spread it around (and on as many websites aspossible) so they can never extinguish what it says.

AN NSPCC advertising campaign is poisoning relationships betweenparents and their children and undermining family life, academicshave said.

The £1.5million campaign appeals directly to children, in contrast tothe previous Full Stop campaign, which was aimed at adults. Itencourages them to speak out about their worries and anxieties and toseek professional help from ChildLine or the NSPCC itself if they donot feel able to talk to their families, friends or teachers. Thecampaign begins tonight and is supported by various celebrities.

However, Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at Kent University,said that by encouraging children to turn to formal organisationswhen they find it difficult to work things through within theirfamilies, the NSPCC was having a corrosive influence on family life.

By reorganising society around the worst possible scenario and actingas if every child was potentially a victim, the NSPCC was condemningall children to live in a state of fear, Professor Furedi said.

"This creates a poisonous atmosphere, in which both mistrust andsuspicion thrive," he said. "People who are concerned about theeffect of advertising on children ought to be concerned about this."

Vanessa Pupavac, lecturer in politics at Nottingham University, saidthat she was concerned about the NSPCC's approach to children'srights. "It does not empower children. It empowers professionalsagainst parents and guardians to speak on their behalf," she added.

The NSPCC said: "The first message to children is that, if you aresuffering serious abuse, you should talk to someone you trust. It ismost likely that this is going to be someone in their family, a closefriend or a teacher.

CHILD MALTREATMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOMA Study of the Prevalence of Child Abuse and Neglect

The NSPCC has undertaken a major piece of national research to explore thechildhood experience of young people in the UK, including their experienceof abuse and neglect. This is the only UK study, and one of the few worldwide, to examine child maltreatment comprehensively, in a large randomprobability sample of the general population.

The 2,689 young people, aged 18-24 years, were interviewed using ComputerAssisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) and able to enter their answersdirectly to ensure confidentiality.

NSPCC SHATTERS CHILD ABUSE MYTHS

Common stereotypes about child abuse are overturned in the NSPCC¹s largestever study of child maltreatment.

* Myth: the most common form of abuse suffered by children at home issexual abuse.

Fact: children are seven times more likely to be beaten badly by theirparents than sexually abused by them.

* Myth: most sexual abuse occurs between fathers and their daughters.

Fact: this type of incestuous relationship is rare, occurring in less thanfour in a thousand children. The most likely relative to abuse within thefamily is a brother or stepbrother.

* Myth: adults are responsible for most sexual violence against childrenand young people outside the family.

Fact: children are most likely to be forced into unwanted sexual activity byother young people, must usually from someone described as a Œboyfriend.¹Less than three in a thousand of the young people reported sexual behaviouragainst their wishes with professionals working with children.

* Myth: sexual attacks on children from strangers are common.

Fact: sexual assaults involving contact by strangers are very rare. Evenwith indecent exposure, only seven per cent of the young people reportedever having been Œflashed at¹, and just over a third of these said theperson was a stranger.

* Myth: most physical abuse is carried out by men, especially fathers.

Fact: violent acts towards children are more likely to be meted out bymothers than fathers (49% of the sample experienced this from mothers and40% from fathers).

NSPCC Director Mary Marsh says: Modern myths about child cruelty haveemerged from the public attention given to horrific and frightening cases ofchild abuse by strangers. Other traditional stereotypes come from ahistorical wellspring of children¹s stories about wicked adult bogeyfigures. These stereotypes have become part of popular culture. This reportchallenges us to re-examine preconceived ideas about child cruelty. In somecases it calls on policy-makers and professionals to overhaul thinking andreconsider how to approach different kinds of child maltreatment.

Introduction

Child abuse destroys children¹s lives.

Over the last 100 years the NSPCC has helped to protect hundreds ofthousands of children from cruelty. Yet, at the start of a new millennium,we do not know the true scale of child abuse and neglect in the UK.

Official data does not paint the whole picture. There are large numbers ofabused children who never see a social worker or police officer and sufferin silence.

In March 1999, the NSPCC FULL STOP Campaign was launched to create theconditions whereby cruelty to children can be ended. Hundreds of thousandsof people and organisations from all sectors of society have joined thecampaign since.

But if we are to achieve our ambitious goal, we need to know much more aboutthose cases of child abuse which go unreported.

With this in mind, the NSPCC conducted a major piece of research which formsthe most authoritative study of child abuse and neglect yet undertaken inthe UK. It is called Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom - a study ofthe prevalence of child abuse and neglect.

The study has three main objectives:

* To help the NSPCC and others develop strategies to prevent child abuse* To help the NSPCC and others plan effective child protection services* To provide a benchmark by which the NSPCC and others can measureprogress towards the goal of ending cruelty to children

For ethical and practical reasons, it would have been wrong to interviewchildren on this subject in this type of survey.

So the study is based on interviews with young people aged 18 - 24 conductedby survey research company BMRB International between September 1998 andFebruary 1999.

This is the only UK study, and one of the few world wide, to examinemaltreatment comprehensively, in a large random probability sample of thegeneral population. The 2,869 young people, aged 18-24 years wereinterviewed using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) and able toenter their answers directly to ensure confidentiality. They were contactedthrough addresses taken randomly from the Postcode Address File, the methodused in all major national surveys.

The interviews covered broad aspects of childhood experience, includingaspects of family life, social relationships, perspectives on child abuseand experience of abuse and neglect in the family and other contexts.

The sample was drawn from all parts of the UK. Most (56 per cent) were stillliving with their parents. Another 18 per cent were living with partners,while 8 per cent lived alone and 15 per cent had their own children.

The interview questions did not define abuse or neglect but asked the youngpeople if they had experienced a range of treatments, some positive and somenegative, as children. Respondents who indicated possible childhood abuse orneglect were asked more detailed questions about their experiences.

The survey achieved a response rate of 69 per cent which is unusually highfor surveys on this topic. Almost all (98%) of the respondents felt thesurvey was worthwhile and 85 per cent said that they would definitely bewilling to take part in further NSPCC research.

FAMILY LIFE

More than nine in ten of the young people said they grew up in a warm andloving family.

Child abuse and neglect is largely a family affair. But we should not losesight of the fact that most parents and carers are trustworthy - very feware abusers.

An overwhelming majority of the young people interviewed in this study - 92per cent - agreed that they had had a warm and loving family background,with 77 per cent strongly agreeing this. The vast majority had been praised,hugged, cuddled, kissed or told nice things such as that they were caredfor. Nine out of ten respondents reported close relationships with theirmothers and eight out of ten with their fathers.

Most respondents had some unwelcome experiences during their childhood. Onein three respondents also reported that there was sometimes 'a lot ofstress' in their families and the same proportion reported financialpressures and worries. Three quarters said they had been shouted or screamedat some point, four in ten had been called stupid, lazy or a similar name,and over a quarter said they had been sworn at. Over three quarters of theseexperiences had occurred at home.

A smaller number of the young people interviewed gave a picture of a darkerchildhood in which they were rarely or never shown affection or wereregularly hit, shouted or sworn at, or went hungry. More than a quarter(26%) reported violence between their parents and for five per cent theviolence was constant or frequent. A quarter of respondents also said therewere things that happened in their childhood that were hard to talk about.One in ten strongly agreed with this.

ACCEPTABLE AND UNACCEPTABLE WAYS OF TREATING CHILDREN

The uncertainty over the ages at which it is safe to leave children Œhomealone¹, and the concerns about children allowed out late at nightunsupervised by adults, are issues that can be better understood in thelight of this study.

The general picture given by the respondents is one of close supervision byparents. Between the ages of five and nine only travelling to school alonewas common, usually above the age of seven.

More independence arises after the age of ten but there was a clear patternthat most children in the UK (88%) are not left at home in the eveningswithout adult supervision until they are at least 12, and they don¹t stay athome unsupervised overnight before they are 14 (91%).

Asked when they were first allowed out overnight without parents knowingtheir whereabouts, more than four out of 10 respondents said that this hadnot been permitted until they were 16 or 17, and more than a third (36%) ofthese 18 - 24 year olds said that this still would never be allowed.

But there were some marked exceptions, which indicate that some childrenwere left unsupervised at a very early age.

Neglect and potential neglect resulting from absence of supervision wasassessed on three levels.

Serious absence of supervision included children first allowed to stay athome overnight without adult supervision under the age of 10, or first outovernight without parents knowing their whereabouts, aged under 14. Thiscategory included five per cent of the sample.

Intermediate absence of supervision included those first left unsupervisedovernight aged 10-11, first allowed out overnight, whereabouts unknown atthe age of 14-15 and under 12s frequently left in charge of younger siblingswhile parents were out. This category comprised 12 per cent of the sample.

A third group, three per cent of the sample, were rated as showing cause forconcern because they were first left without adult supervision in theevening, or going to the town centre without an adult or much older child,when they were under 10 years old.

In total, 20 per cent of the sample, or one in five children, were assessedas experiencing less than adequate supervision at some point in theirchildhood.

Boys were slightly less likely to be supervised than girls on some measures,with girls far less likely than boys to have been allowed out overnight.Respondents in manual occupations were far more likely than those in Œwhitecollar¹ or professional occupations to have been allowed out overnight,whereabouts unknown. Apart from this measure, social grade differences wereminimal.

BULLYING AND DISCRIMINATION

More than four out of ten respondents had been bullied or discriminatedagainst by other children or young people. For eight per cent this happenedregularly over years.

Previous NSPCC research showed that more than half of children aged eight to15 years sometimes or often worried about being bullied at school and thatyounger children worried most. This study throws more light on this problem,which is known to cause acute misery to many children.

Generally, bullying is defined as:

* occurring over time rather than being a single aggressive act* involving an imbalance of power - the powerful attack the powerless* psychological, verbal or physical in nature

This study showed that 43 per cent of young people had, at some point intheir childhood, experienced bullying, discrimination or being made to feeldifferent by other children. Nearly all (94%) of these experiences tookplace at school.

When asked why they believed this had happened, the reasons given wereusually personal characteristics over which the young people had no control.'Size' was given as the reason by a more than a quarter of the respondents.'Class' (eg. how they spoke or dressed) and intelligence were each cited asthe reason by around a fifth of respondents.

Respondents from black and Asian ethnic groups were less likely than whiterespondents to say that they had been bullied (24% compared to 32%) but morelikely to report discrimination (23% compared to 6%). Eight per cent ofthose who had been bullied or discriminated against gave 'race' as thereason. But this masked a huge difference between ethnic groups: almostseven out of ten respondents from minority ethnic groups who had beenbullied or discriminated against put this down to their race, compared tojust three per cent of white victims.

Name-calling, insults and verbal abuse were most common - almost nine in tenof those bullied said that other children had treated them in this way. Thisamounts to 37 per cent of all respondents. One in seven respondents had beensubjected to physical bullying such as hitting or punching, and one in tenhad been threatened with violence. Bullying and discrimination includeddamaging or stealing belongings, humiliating, ignoring/not speaking to them,and telling lies about them or deliberately getting them into trouble.

A fifth of those bullied, equivalent to eight per cent of all respondents,said that they had been bullied regularly over years. A quarter (10% of thewhole sample) had experienced long-term effects as a result.

The study confirms previous studies suggesting that bullying anddiscrimination, especially at school, is one of the most common forms ofharmful aggression experienced by children and young people in the UK.

PHYSICAL ABUSE

Seven per cent of the young people suffered serious physical abuse by aparent or carer.

In England in the year to 31 March 2000, there were 30,300 children on childprotection registers, of which 8,700 were registered for physical injury,sometimes allied to other forms of abuse and neglect.

The young people were asked whether they had ever as a child experiencedbeing:

* Hit on the bottom with a hard implement such as a stick* Hit on another part of the body with a hard implement* Hit with a fist or kicked hard* Shaken* Thrown or knocked down* Beaten up, being hit over and over again* Grabbed around the neck and choked* Burned or scalded on purpose* Threatened with a knife or a gun

A quarter of respondents said they had experienced at least one of theseviolent acts either in the family, at school or in another situation. Yetthese are acts which both the present study and previous research have shownare unacceptable to the great majority (in most instances more than nine outof 10) of the UK population.

* 78% experienced this violence at home* 15% at school* 13% in a public place

Within the family it is primarily birth parents who mete out violenttreatment. Of those who were treated violently in childhood:

* 49 per cent were treated violently by their mother* 40 per cent by their father* 5 per cent by their stepfather* 3 per cent by their stepmother

Bruising was by far the most common injury suffered as a result of violence,but respondents also reported broken bones, head injuries, bites and burns.

The study graded the childhood maltreatment on three levels:

* Serious physical abuse was where the violent treatment either causedinjury or carried a high risk of injury if continued over time or throughoutchildhood.* Intermediate physical abuse was where violent treatment occurredoccasionally but caused no injury, or where other physicaltreatment/discipline was used regularly over the years and/or led tophysical effects such as pain, soreness or marks lasting at least until nextday.* Cause for concern was where the injury or potential harm was notimmediately serious but where less serious physical treatment/disciplineoccurred regularly and indicated problems in parenting or the quality ofcare which could escalate or lead to continued distress for a child.

The study found that seven per cent of the young people had suffered seriousphysical abuse at the hands of their parents or carers.

There was a strong link between the socio-economic status of the youngperson and serious physical abuse. Young people in semi-skilled or unskilledmanual jobs were three times more likely to have suffered serious physicalabuse than those in professional jobs.

Another fourteen per cent of respondents suffered at the intermediate levelof physical abuse. And a final three per cent came from families where therewas cause for concern about how children were treated.

In total, more than a fifth of respondents suffered physically to somedegree. Their parents or carers, at least sometimes, breached the standardsshown by previous research to be accepted by the vast majority of people.

Girls were slightly more likely than boys to be seriously physically abusedby parents or carers but boys were a little more likely to have experiencedphysical abuse at intermediate levels.

PHYSICAL NEGLECT

Six per cent of the young people were subjected to serious physical neglectat home.

In England in the year to 31 March 2000, there were 30,300 children onprotection registers, of which 14,000 were registered for neglect, sometimesallied to other forms of abuse.

Physical neglect: lack of physical care

Almost all the young people questioned took for granted that their parentsor carers would provide food, clean clothes and medical care. Less than onein a hundred reported frequent failures of care on these issues. Smallnumbers of respondents also reported lack of care on other individualissues:

* Three per cent often had to look after themselves due to their parentsproblems with alcohol or drugs* Two per cent regularly had to look after themselves because theirparents went away* Less than one per cent said they were allowed to go into dangerousplaces, that their home was dangerous or unclean, or that they wereabandoned.

As with physical abuse, lack of physical care and nurturing was assessed onthree levels.

Serious lack of care was identified as lack of care which carried a highrisk of injury or long-term harmful effects.

Those who were seriously neglected as a child

* frequently went without food as a young child* frequently were not looked after or taken to the doctor when ill as ayoung child* frequently went to school in dirty clothes as a young child* regularly had to look after themselves because parents went away or haddrug or alcohol problems* were abandoned or deserted* lived in a home with dangerous conditions

Intermediate lack of care was identified when the lack of care was lessserious but happened regularly, or was serious but happened onlyoccasionally (for example, occasionally went hungry because there was nofood to eat).

Cause for concern was identified when the lack of care was not serious butindicated problems in parenting or quality of care (eg. respondents saidthat they had been given no dental care as a child, sometimes had to go toschool in dirty clothes, or lived in an unclean home).

The study found that six per cent of respondents had suffered seriousabsence of physical care by their parents or carers.

The study underlines the links between child neglect and socialdisadvantage. Respondents in semi or unskilled employment were ten timesmore likely to have experienced serious absence of care in childhood thanwere respondents who were in professional jobs and almost twice as likely asthose in higher education.

Another nine per cent of respondents experienced intermediate lack of carewith a further two percent indicating some cause for concern. In total, 18per cent of respondents experienced absence of care to some level in theirchildhood.

EMOTIONAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL MALTREATMENT

Six per cent of the young people were emotionally maltreated consistently inchildhood

Emotional maltreatment is not a new phenomenon - history is littered withexamples of emotionally abusive and neglected childhoods. However, in termsof child protection thinking in this century, emotional or psychologicalmaltreatment is a comparative newcomer. It was only in 1980 that emotionalabuse was introduced as a criterion for children on child protectionregisters.

Previous research concluded that emotional abuse is the Œmost hidden andunderestimated form of child maltreatment¹ - unlike other forms of abuse, itleaves no physical injuries. Emotional maltreatment is inextricably linkedwith all forms of abuse and neglect, all of which can create fear, guilt,loss of self esteem and self confidence, and isolation from the support ofother people.

There is evidence that with all abuse and neglect it is often thepsychological damage that lasts longest. But while other forms ofmaltreatment can show physical evidence, emotional maltreatment, when itoccurs alone, is often not visible to others and is the hardest form to dealwith through child protection procedures. This is why there has been solittle research and so little evidence about it.

This study is the first general population research into the prevalence ofemotional maltreatment in the UK.

The experiences of each respondent were grouped and analysed according toseven types of emotional treatment. Most maltreatment in these categorieswas by parents or carers.

* Terrorising - threats to harm the child, someone or something the childloves, threatening with fear figures, threats to have the child sent away,making the child do something that frightens them.* Proxy attacks by harming someone or something the child loves orvalues. This could include deliberate attacks on the child¹s possessions orpets, and also includes violence between carers.* Psychological control and domination, including attempts to overlycontrol the child¹s thinking, and isolation from other sources of supportand development.* Psycho/physical control and domination - physical acts which exertcontrol and domination causing distress rather than pain or injury, such aswashing out the mouth with soap.* Humiliation and degradation - psychological attacks on the child¹sworth or self esteem, which could be verbal or non-verbal.* Withdrawal - withholding of affection and care, exclusion from thefamily (including showing preference for siblings and excluding the childfrom benefits given to other children in the family).* Antipathy - showing marked dislike of the child by word or deed

The most common emotional maltreatment was Œterrorising¹. Over a third ofrespondents reported some of the experiences in this category. The mostcommon was of being Œsometimes really afraid of my father/ stepfather¹followed by threats of being sent away.

A quarter had experienced extreme psychological domination, with parents whowere unpredictable and/or allowed them no freedom of thought or expression.

Almost a fifth of respondents had experienced physical punishments such ashaving their mouths washed out with soap or their noses rubbed in wetsheets, or had experienced constant verbal attack such as being toldthroughout their childhood that they were stupid, or that their parentswished them dead or never born.

One in ten had loveless childhoods, reporting that parents never showed themaffection and excluded them from treats the other children were getting,while a similar proportion had experienced seeing a parent or a pet harmedor had treasured possessions destroyed in proxy attacks.

Most people have unpleasant, frightening or embarrassing experiences at sometime, even with loved members of their families, but these experiences areusually occasional events. Emotional maltreatment is persistent andpervasive to a level that can destroy the child¹s self confidence, happinessand trust in other people.

The research assessed this by looking at how many of these experiences thechild had on the seven dimensions and assigning a score between 0 and 14. Ascore of seven or more meant that the respondent had experienced damagingtreatment on at least four of the seven dimensions.

In all six per cent of respondents had scores of seven or more and wereassessed as experiencing serious emotional maltreatment. Young women weretwice as likely to have high scores as young men.

These findings indicate that a small proportion of respondents experiencedmultiple attacks on their emotional well-being within their family for muchor all of their childhood.

However, the study also shows that a much larger number of the respondentsexperienced parenting which was at times insensitive. Parents who tell theirchildren that they wish they were dead or had never been born, for example,may be reacting to stress or family crisis rather than expressing agenuinely held long-term view, but it is hard to imagine a more hurtfulthing to say to a child.

SEXUAL ABUSE

One per cent of the young people suffered sexual abuse by a parent or carerand three per cent by another relative.

In England in the year to 31 March 2000, there were 30,300 children onprotection registers, of which 5,600 were registered for sexual abuse,sometimes allied to other forms of abuse and neglect.

Sexual abuse within the family

The laws on sexual offences against children are currently under review. InJuly 2000, a Home Office Review proposed replacing current sexual offencessuch as incest with a range of new offences including familial sexual abuse,adult sexual abuse of a child and sexual activities between minors. Thisstudy increases our understanding of the way that sexual offences affectchildren, whether committed inside and outside the family.

In the study, 18-24 year olds were asked whether they had ever experiencedany from a list of sexual acts when they were under 16. Respondents werealso asked whether these activities had taken place against their wishes orwith their consent, at what age it had happened and how old the other personwas. This information was used to assess whether they had experienced sexualabuse.

Their answers were grouped as follows according to the nature andseriousness of the activities.

* Penetrative or oral acts involving sexual or anal intercourse, oralsex, or the insertion of finger, tongue or object into the vagina or anus.* Attempted penetrative or oral acts, as above.* Touching or fondling the respondents' sex organs or private parts,getting the respondent to touch a person's sex organs or sexually arousethem.* Sexual hugging or kissing.* Being videoed for pornographic purposes, shown pornographic videos,magazines, computer images or photos, or being made or encouraged to watchother people having intercourse or performing sex or pornographic acts* A person exposing sex organs for to excite themselves or to shock therespondent

Relatively small numbers of the young people had experienced sexual abuse byfamily members.

One per cent of the young people had been sexually abused by a parent orstep-parent, nearly always the male parent. Nearly all involved sex actsinvolving genital or anal physical contact. Very few said they had been usedby a parent to make pornography, made to watch sex acts or exposure. Maleand female respondents were equally likely to have been abused by parents.

Three per cent of the young people had been sexually abused by a relativeother than a parent. Three quarters of this group were young women. A widerange of relatives were involved - nearly all were male, with brothers andstep-brothers mentioned most often. Again, most of this involved genital oranal physical contact, with one per cent being used to make pornography, ormade to watch sex acts or exposure.

One in ten of the young people had experienced penetrative sex, oral sex orattempts at these against their will by people known but unrelated to them.A large number reported the use of physical force or threat.

Sexual abuse outside the family

Far more of the respondents had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour withnon-relatives than with family members. Nearly all occurred with peopleknown to the child, the vast majority with 'boyfriends' and 'girlfriends'.

Penetrative or oral sex acts which occurred against the young people'swishes or with people at least 5 years older

* 70 per cent occurred with 'boyfriends' or 'girlfriends'* 17 per cent occurred with 'someone recently met'* 10 per cent occurred with a fellow student or pupil* 6 per cent occurred with a friend of parent or sibling* 4 per cent occurred with neighbours* 4 per cent occurred with a female stranger* 3 per cent occurred with a male stranger* 2 per cent occurred with babysitters

Very few respondents reported sexual activity involving professionalsresponsible for their care, and none involving care workers.

The only unwanted sexual activity experienced frequently from strangers wasindecent exposure. But even among the seven per cent who reported this,respondents were twice as likely to experience it from a known person thanfrom a stranger.

Up to 75 per cent of those reporting sexual acts against their wishes orwith someone much older were female. More than nine out of ten of theseyoung women reported that the other person concerned was male. For the youngmen who reported similar experiences, the picture was more mixed.

Sexual incidents most often took place either in the respondent's own homeor in the home of the other person. Other locations were rarely mentioned,except for indecent exposure, where 30 per cent of incidents occurred in anopen place such as woods or parks, or abandoned buildings.

Where respondents reported actual or attempted oral or penetrative sexagainst their wishes, physical force and blackmail had been commonly used.Force had been used in six out of ten attempts to coerce them into oral orpenetrative sex attacks and blackmail in four out of ten attempts.

Most sexual behaviour which is unwanted or involves a much older personoccurs in adolescence. Around three quarters of male and female respondentswho experienced actual or attempted oral or penetrative acts against theirwishes or with an older person were aged between 13-15 years when it firsthappened.

Only 28 per cent of the young people who had experienced sexual acts whichwere unwanted or involving a much older person told anyone about at thetime; 27 per cent told someone later, and 31 per cent had never told anyone.Of those who had told someone, most had told a friend, while a minority hadtold a parent or other relative. Hardly anyone had told police, socialservices or other professionals.

Six per cent of respondents reported having been involved in 'consensual'sexual behaviour when aged 13-15, with someone five or more years older thanthemselves.

CONCLUSIONS

Families are the primary source of love and nurturing for nearly allchildren. But significant minorities of children are confronted - eitheroccasionally or regularly - by stresses, problems and abusive behaviour withwhich they should not have to cope.

For many children too, the wider world of school, friends and community isone which is fraught with the threats of bullying, discrimination and -particularly for girls - sexual harassment and violence.

This study underlines the need for children's voices to be heard by thepeople who can help them. Children need the self-confidence to speak out andsomeone they trust and in whom they can confide.

Large numbers of children find it too difficult to talk about the abuse anddifficulties which they face in their lives. If they do tell someone, it isvery unlikely to be a professional concerned with their care. In this way,distressing and harmful childhood experiences can remain hidden for manyyears.

In terms of severity and frequency, there are different levels of childmaltreatment. When children at risk of significant harm are identified,children¹s services must act quickly and decisively to protect them. And[censored] action against carers may be appropriate when a child has sufferedserious abuse or neglect.

However, not all cruelty to children is planned or intended to cause harm.Our approach to child protection must be a sophisticated one, geared up forpreventing child abuse and neglect.

Although children from all social backgrounds can suffer maltreatment, thestudy found strong links between serious physical abuse or neglect andsocio-economic grade. This indicates that children in families facingpoverty and social exclusion are particularly vulnerable.

If we are serious about reducing the incidence of child cruelty, we mustgive more support to those families pushed to the limits by extreme stress,medical conditions or socio-economic pressures.

This report presents a challenge to society in general, and professionalsand policy-makers in particular, to create the conditions whereby no childhas to worry about going hungry or being assaulted in the family home.

It also challenges us to rethink the ways we support families in the UK andcare for children both inside and outside the family setting. Most childabuse goes unreported or undetected. We need to find ways to reach its manyhidden victims.

We know that cruelty to children can be brought to a full stop, if the willto do so exists.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The United Kingdom is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on theRights of the Child. Article 3 of the Convention requires that 'StatesParties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as isnecessary for his or her well-being' and Article 19 requires 'protectionfrom all forms of maltreatment perpetrated by parents or caretakers'. Thepresent survey shows a number of ways in which we should be improving theprotection that we offer to our children. Some require further research toincrease knowledge and some could be implemented now on the basis of ourexisting knowledge.

Recommendation 1: A general population survey of the prevalence ofmaltreatment should be carried out at regular intervals not exceeding 10years.

Recommendation 2: A national incidence study of all known cases of childmaltreatment should be developed as part of regular service monitoring, tocollate reports from social services, health services, schools, voluntaryagencies, the probation service and police.

Recommendation 3: A permanent database of all fatal child abuse and neglectcases should be maintained by Department of Health and the Home Office. Thisshould include all child homicides, and should be available for research andfor the preparation of training materials for professionals working withchild fatalities.

Recommendations 4: Research is needed which examines the basis ofdifferential assessment of child maltreatment by victims and professionalsin more detail than hitherto.

Recommendation 5: Training for those investigating allegations ofmaltreatment and for judges and other lawyers dealing with the court processshould make them aware that, for a variety of reasons, victims may minimisetheir experience, even when they have suffered considerable harm.

Recommendation 6: Better, more accessible public information is needed forchildren and their families on the nature of child maltreatment. This wouldassist children to recognise when the treatment they or children in theirfamilies receive is unacceptable. It would help adults to recognise whenchildren known to them may need protection.

Recommendation 7: Research, practice and training initiatives are needed toenlarge our knowledge and understanding of neglect and emotionalmaltreatment, and to establish a consensual base for the development ofstandards of care, an appropriate legal framework, and measures ofŒsignificant harm¹.

Recommendation 8: Strategies for dealing with sexual abuse inside andoutside the family should be reviewed, to ensure that they addressadequately the different characteristics of these situations. Implicationsfor training for the professionals involved are particularly important.

Recommendation 9: We should take very seriously the evidence that physical,sexual and psychological attack from peers (including siblings and step-siblings) are the most common abusive experiences faced by young people andaddress the issues of cultures which promote physical and sexual aggressionamong young people. Schools and youth services have a major part to playhere, but so also does the media, and community initiatives could beparticularly valuable where young people experience the streets as unsafe.

Recommendation 10: Urgent attention is needed to providing forms of helpwith sexual abuse which can be easily and confidentially accessed by youngpeople.

Recommendation 11: The British Crime Survey should be expanded to covercrimes against children under 16. Crime statistics should report the ages ofvictims.

Recommendation 13: Research is needed on the dynamics of family violence toassist professionals in identifying the different situations in whichviolence and emotional maltreatment can arise. Strategies for protectingchildren will need to be quite different if the problems result fromsituational pressures such as illness or poverty than if they result fromfundamentally pathological, aggressively dominant relationships.

Let us unravel the gender feminist 'safety of children' argument.

The evidence that sole custody is dangerous for children is clear andconvincing upon examination.

Even a cursory look at the data documents that children are victimizedby sole custody decisions. However, the HORISP Committee would preferto base its conclusions on debunked feminist ideology rather thanmainstream science.

The following disturbing findings were included in the Joint ParentingAssociation's submission to the federal inquiry. The Committee'sdisregard of the substantial published research is simply staggering.

Perhaps the most striking information suggesting that sole custodyarrangements victimize children are several reports which indicate anincreased risk for all forms of child abuse for sole maternal custody(Ditson & Shay 1984, Webb 1991). Ditson & Shay (1984) for example,presented data which indicates that 63% of all confirmed child abuse inone American city during one year took place in the homes of singleparents and that the mother was the perpetrator of the abuse in 77% ofthose cases.

The nationally representative survey by Gelles (1988) of 6000 Americanhouseholds revealed that single mothers are more likely to use violencetowards their children than are parents in dual-caretaker households.These disturbing statistics support the often-ignored Straus, Gelles, &Steimnetz (1980) finding that:

"Mothers are at least as likely as fathers to use even more seriousforms of violence such as kicks, bites, punches and beatings. This isimportant because family violence is probably the only situation wherewomen are as or more violent (physically)than men...While fathers whobeat up their children do so on average of once a year, mothers who beatup their children do it more than once every other month."

Moreover, the researchers in their comparison between mothers andfathers who were living together in the intact family revealed thatmothers were more likely to use forms of violence which placed theirchildren at risk of physical injury than were fathers. The studydocumented a 62% greater rate of child assault by mothers than fathers.Sons were beaten more frequently than daughters. Also, sons were theonly ones who were threatened or assaulted with guns or knives. Indiscussing the incidence of child mistreatment, Straus and colleaguesobserved that the literature on child abuse suggests that abuse may bemore common in families where only one parent lives with the child. Hadthey studied single-parent homes, the authors considered that they mightalso have uncovered a higher rate of extreme violence towards children.

Sack, Mason, & Higgins (1985) found that the prevalence of physicallyabusive punishment to be twice as high in single parent families as intwo parent households. The sex of the single parent was not related tothe abusive behaviour. Other data from various United Statesdepartments of human services suggest that, in most cases of child abuseand neglect, the mother is perpetrator (Webb 1991, Wright 1992) and thisis consistent with research reports by various advocacy groups fornon-custodial parents and their children (Anderson 1990; Burmeister1991a). A study of all state child protective services agencies by theChildren's Rights Coalition (a child advocacy and research organizationin Austin Texas), found that biological mothers physically abuse theirchildren at twice the rate of biological fathers. The majority of therest of the time, children were abused because of the single–mothers'poor choices in the subsequent men in their lives. Incidences of abusewere almost non–existent in single–father–headed households (Anderson1990).

These data could result from the increased stress associated with singleparent responsibilities, since the Ditson & Shay (1984) research alsoindicated that, in married families, the abuse was evenly split betweenmale and female perpetrators (i.e., the mother and the father). Alsothese data–based conclusions may result from the fact that followingdivorce more children live with mothers than with fathers. Further, noinformation is currently available on such increased risk among solepaternal residence children. Finally, some studies indicate directlyconflicting results (Rosenthall 1988). However given the potential riskof child abuse, which may be associated with sole maternal custody,these reports must be investigated

National data collected by the Australian Institute Of Health AndWelfare (AIHW) show much the same pattern. Child abuse and neglectstatistics collated by Angus & Hall (1996) of the AIHW show anover–representation of single–parent households. For the three states(Vic, Qld, & WA) and two territories (ACT & NT) for which data wereprovided, more cases involved children from female single–parenthouseholds (39%) than families with two natural parents (30%) or othertwo parent households such as step parent households (21%). Theover–representation becomes even more apparent when the abuse statisticsare compared with Australian Bureau of Statistics (1995) data on therelative frequency of different family types in Australia.

"In all, 34% of substantiated cases of physical abuse occurred infamilies with two natural parents and 32% in female single–parentfamilies. More substantiated emotional and sexual abuse and neglectcases involved children from female single–parent families than fromother types of family––38% of substantiated cases of emotional abuse,34% of sexual abuse and 47% of neglect cases. In comparison, 31% ofsubstantiated cases of emotional abuse, 30% of substantiated cases ofsexual abuse and 26% of neglect involved children from families with twonatural parents."

The data strangely missing from the above statement is the relativeincidence in the community of single–parent households compared with twonatural parent families. When this factor is taken into account, thedifference in child abuse rates becomes more starkly apparent. Since81% of Australian children 0–14 years live with both their naturalparents (Australian Bureau Of Statistics 1995) and 30% of child sexualabuse occurs in this type of family, while 13% of children live infemale single parent households (Australian Bureau Of Statistics 1995)and 34% of child sexual abuse occurs in this type of household––itfollows that the relative risk of child sexual abuse in a female singleparent household is over seven times the risk in a two natural parentfamily (34/13 x 81/30). The relative risk of any kind of abuse in asingle parent household is eight times that of a two natural parentfamily.

Importantly, for children there are no reported instances of abuse injoint custody families

The situation is becoming more serious. The Australian Bureau ofStatistics reports that between 1982 and1992, the number of familiesheaded by a lone parent grew by more than 180,000, reaching an estimated619,000––an increase of 42% in just ten years (Australian Bureau OfStatistics 1995). The data provided by Angus & Hall (1996) and theAustralian Bureau of Statistics (1995) shows the dramatic relativerisk of child abuse and neglect in single–parent families, and even morein step–families. The proportion of two natural parent families in thecommunity has decreased since 1992 (Australian Bureau of Statistics(1995), with a corresponding increase in the proportion of singleparent and blended families but the relative risk of child abuse in thenon–traditional family types remains much higher than for two naturalparent families.

Child abuse is intimately related to later delinquency and violentcrime, and here too divorce is implicated (Fagan 1997). Higher levelsof divorce mean higher levels of child abuse. Remarriage does notreduce this level of child abuse and may even add to it. Serious abuseis a much higher among stepchildren compared with children of intactfamilies. Adults who were sexually abused as children are more likelyto have been raised in stepfamilies (Fergusson, Lynskey, & Horwood 1996)The rate of sexual abuse of girls by stepfathers ranges from six toseven times as likely (Russell 1984), and may be as much as 40 timesmore when compared with such abuse by biological fathers in intactfamilies (Wilson & Daly 1987).

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Brian Burdekan 1989) has reportedthat sexual abuse of girls is very much higher in households where theadult male is not the natural father. National statistics indicate thatthe relative risk of child sex abuse in a family where only one of theparent figures is a natural parent, is much higher than in asingle–parent family and enormously higher––around 17 times––than in atwo natural parent family. In a step–family, the abuser may be an olderstep–sibling––not necessarily the step parent.

Family structure predicts huge differences in rates of fatal childabuse. Professors Margo Wilson and Martin Daly (1987) of the Departmentof Psychology at McMasters University, Canada, report that children twoyears and younger are seventy to a hundred times more likely to bekilled at the hands of stepparents than at the hands of biologicalparents. Younger children are more vulnerable because they are so muchweaker physically. British data is milder but the research is not asrigorous as the Canadian research. There the fatal abuse of children ofall ages occurs three times more frequently in stepfamilies than inintact married families. Neglect of children, which frequently is morepsychologically damaging than physical abuse (Emery 1989),109 also ishigher––twice as high––among separated and divorced parents.

Stepparents always have had a difficult time establishing close bondswith new stepchildren as even traditional fairy tales recount. Solecustody is the judicial preferment of step–parents. Difficultiesbetween children and step–parents are not confined to Grimm’s fairytales. The fairytale theme is confirmed in the research literature: Therate of bonding between stepparents and stepchildren is rather low. Byone study only 53 percent of stepfathers and 25 percent of stepmothersmay have parental feelings toward their stepchildren, and still fewer tolove them.

A Melbourne study (Hodges 1982). indicated considerable difficultieswere experienced by adolescents on the re–marriage of the custodial(usually the mother). The majority appeared uncomfortable. There is avast biological literature regarding parental solicitude which showsthat it is discrimutive. Parents favour their own children. Biparentalcare is universal in our species and is a fundamental attribute (Dally &Wilson 1980).

With these recorded results, it is somewhat surprising that the factorof sole maternal custody is not considered in much of the literature onchild abuse. Numerous factors are considered as correlates of childabuse including age and sex of the child, race, family income, number ofsiblings and social status. While a number of Australian studies haveconsidered the effects of the family structure on child victimization,most merely refer to structure as part of the family demographicinformation, noting the over–representation in their sample (e.g.Goodard & Hiller 1992). However, results are not reported which wouldindicate whether mothers were more prone to child abuse than fathers, orif sole maternal custody—as compared to joint custody, sole paternalcustody, or intact family status—contributed to an increased risk forchild abuse. These are simple questions. Yet these fundamentalquestions are not being addressed.

In this context, the decision taken in 1997 by the AIHW (Broadbent &Bentley 1997) to no longer publish data indicating the sex ofperpetrators in substantiated child abuse cases must be reversed. Theaction was taken just one year after the data was first published in1996 (968 men and 1138 women). The omission was justified on thewobbly basis that only one state (WA) and two territories (ACT & NT) hadfurnished statistics and a lack of publishing space. . Interestedparties were advised that they could obtain the data under a Freedom OfInformation request at a cost of $200.

Curiously, these reasons did not preclude the publication of these datain 1996. In fact, Angus & Hall (1996) observed that "the informationbase provide an extra dimension to data previously presented." Quiteobviously, the non publication of these important statistics cannegatively impact on child abuse policy and the allocation of resources.If the AIHW decision does indeed represent bias reporting then suchslanted views clearly have no place in scientific endevours.

Funny thing nolonger I have told that dude to go f-his self like 4 times last night. He sure is getting a lot of action f-ing himself. Maybe he will leave the children alone that he abused.He turly is in need of some Medical treament. Like shock treatment to his genitals. He is a boil on the a$$ of society.

Well, you could start by not stooping to the game playing. This was a tit for tat situation that backfired in your face. It has nothing to do with domestic violence or abuse, it is to do with the fact that you mess with the X at the kids' expense. One of you need to grow up and be the parent that your kids need. You dealt the cards, now you want to bytch because it didn't go the way you wanted it to. Get over it and move on. Go the legal route, not the petty one.

--------------------I tried being normal once. Worst five minutes of my life.

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. - James Thurber

It’s generally thought that the home is a more dangerous place for women than men. This myth is what fundamental feminists want us to believe. The fact is that our homes and neighborhoods can be a dangerous place for both males and females.

The vast majority of homicides are not committed by strangers. The majority of homicide offenders and victims are intimate/family members or acquaintances. The FBI Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR) defines intimate/family members as relatives, step-relatives, in-laws, and common law or ex-spouses.

The SRC documents that between 1981 and 2000, 28,586 females were the victims of a family/intimate homicide. During that same period there were 31,509 male victims. From 1981 to 2,000, 120,095 males and 33,088 females were murdered by an acquaintance. During that same time period 49,424 males and 8,518 females were murdered by a stranger. To paraphrase Pogo, we have met the enemy and the enemy is us.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the United States, documents that females account for 24% of the total number of all homicides victims. Of that 24%, approximately 30% of females are murdered by a husband or intimate partner Thus, female intimate partners who are murdered by their spouse or intimate partner account for approximately 7% of the total number of homicides.

The majority, but certainly not all, domestic violence homicides are committed by people who have histories of criminal behavior, long histories of violent and aberrant behavior inside and out side the family, were physically and/or sexually abused as children and/or suffer from alcohol or substance abuse.

National Institute of Justice data document that in 74% of familial murders, the murderer has a prior criminal record of arrest or conviction. In fact 44% of the victims also had a prior criminal record. A Massachusetts study documents that 91% of chronic domestic violence offenders have a history of criminal behavior. Thus these people constitute a subgroup of the population and are not reflective of the general population.

The people who do not have histories of criminal behavior and commit a smaller number of domestic violence homicides also do not represent the general populace. They often appear to be people who display extreme narcissistic behavior, have alcohol or drug problems, display pathological jealousy, become extremely depressed at the prospect of losing their partner and blame their intimate partners for the loss of their economic standing or professional and personal esteem. In fact, approximately one in every four domestic violence homicides is a murder/suicide.

Between 1976 and 1996, 64% of female intimate partner victims were killed by their husbands, 5% by ex-husbands and 32% by partners/boyfriends. Of male victims, 62% were killed by their wives, 4% by ex-wives and 34% by partners/girlfriends.

This data documents that the home is a more dangerous place for males than females. The fact that the number of male offenders is higher than the number of female offenders does not change that fact.

Approximately one third of family murders involve a female as the murder. In sibling murders they account for 15% and for the murder of parents it is 18%. In spousal murders women represent 41% of the murders. In the murder of their biological children, women account for 55% of the murders.

In fact given this data the argument can be made that given the total number of murders committed by women, the home is more dangerous for men than women and women are more dangerous in the home than are men.

Richard L. Davis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Richard L. Davis served in the United States Marine Corps from 1960 to 1964. He is a retired lieutenant from the Brockton, Massachusetts police department. He has a graduate degree in criminal justice from Anna Maria College and another in liberal arts from Harvard University. He has a BA from Bridgewater State College in History and he minored in secondary education. He is a member of the International Honor Society of Historians and an instructor of Criminology, Group Violence and Terrorism, Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence at Quincy College in Plymouth, MA. He is a past president of the Community Center for Non-Violence in New Bedford, Massachusetts and the vice president for Family Nonviolence, Inc. http://www.familynonviolence.com/ in Fairhaven, MA. He is an independent consultant for criminal justice agencies concerning policies, procedures, and programs concerning domestic violence. He is the author of Domestic Violence: Facts and Fallacies by Praeger publishers and has written numerous articles for newspapers, journals, and magazines concerning the issue of domestic violence. He has columns concerning domestic violence at http://www.policeone.com/, and http://www.nycop.com/, is a distance learner instructor in Introduction to Criminal Justice and Domestic Violence for the Online Police Academy and has a website at http://www.policewriters.com/. He and Kim Eyer have a domestic violence website The Cop and the Survivor at http://www.rhiannon3.com/cs/. He lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts with his wife and the two youngest of five children. He experienced domestic violence professionally for 21 years as a police officer and personally as a child and as an adult. In his retirement he continues to use his education, experience, and training to help the children, women, and men who have had to endure violence from those who profess to love them. He may be reached at rldavis@post.harvard.edu.

Becka - Perhaps you didn't fully read my topic here. In no way did my X know that my plan was to ask for an answer about where my stuff is before handing over the items for the kids visit with him. There was no agreement or set plan for me to have the kids stuff ready for him at any specific time. When he arrived here without permission, the items simply weren't ready for him yet. Had I been given notice that he was coming over to get those things, I would have made a plan with him for the handing over of the items like we always do.

Everybody needs to stop harping on the "almost" issue of my bad decision that I never went through on and refocus on the original question of:

WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT THE FACT THAT X BROKE COURT ORDER COMING TO MY HOUSE UNANNOUNCED AND

TOLD MY DAUGHTER TO FURTHER BREAK COURT ORDER ON HIS BEHALF BY HAVING HER GO INTO THE HOME WITHOUT PERMISSION??

Stop harping on the wrong topic please! And if you don't have an answer, move on to another topic and piss off someone else!

You can't resist showing your total ignorance by increasing the number of posts by your constant attacks against the most knowledgeable posters on this site. Y'know, you really are childish.

How old are you? 10?

Beware: This is a known femin azi.

Therefore, whatever she states should be regarded with caution and suspect due to her repeated lies, misinformation and posts in multiple names along with just being an "icky" type subhuman.

False Rape Accusations May Be More Common Than Thought

Tuesday , May 02, 2006

By Wendy McElroy

Is it the new 1-in-4 statistic?

I don't mean the widely-circulated '1-in-4 women will be raped in their lifetime' but a statistic that suggests '1-in-4 accusations of rape are false.'

For a long time, I have been bothered by the elusiveness of figures on the prevalence of false accusations of sexual assault. The crime of 'bearing false witness' is rarely tracked or punished, and the context in which it is usually raised is highly politicized.

Politically correct feminists claim false rape accusations are rare and account for only 2 percent of all reports. Men's rights sites point to research that places the rate as high as 41 percent. These are wildly disparate figures that cannot be reconciled.

This week I stumbled over a passage in a 1996 study published by the U.S. Department of Justice: Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial.

The study documents 28 cases which, "with the exception of one young man of limited mental capacity who pleaded guilty," consist of individuals who were convicted by juries and, then, later exonerated by DNA tests.

At the time of release, they had each served an average of 7 years in prison.

The passage that riveted my attention was a quote from Peter Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, prominent criminal attorneys and co-founders of the Innocence Project that seeks to release those falsely imprisoned.

They stated, "Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing. Specifically, FBI officials report that out of roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases since 1989, about 2,000 tests have been inconclusive, about 2,000 tests have excluded the primary suspect, and about 6,000 have "matched" or included the primary suspect."

The authors continued, "these percentages have remained constant for 7 years, and the National Institute of Justice's informal survey of private laboratories reveals a strikingly similar 26 percent exclusion rate."

If the foregoing results can be extrapolated, then the rate of false reports is roughly between 20 (if DNA excludes an accused) to 40 percent (if inconclusive DNA is added). The relatively low estimate of 25 to 26 percent is probably accurate, especially since it is supported by other sources.

Before analyzing the competing figures, however, caveats about the one just mentioned are necessary.

First, the category of 'false accusations' does not distinguish between accusers who lie and those who are honestly mistaken. Nor does it indicate that a rape did not occur, merely that the specific accused is innocent.

Thus, there is a drive by voices for reform, like the Innocence Institute, to improve eyewitness identification techniques within police departments.

For example, the Innocence Institute suggests "Police should use a 'double-blind' photo identification procedure where someone other than the investigator -- who does not know who the suspect is -- constructs photo arrays with non-suspects as fillers to reduce suggestiveness."

Second, even if false accusations are as common as 1-in-4, that means 75 percent of reports are probably accurate and, so, all accusations deserve a thorough and professional investigation.

Third, the 1-in-4 figure has 'fuzzy' aspects that could influence the results. For example, Neufeld and Scheck mention only sexual assault cases that were "referred to the FBI where results could be obtained."

It is not clear what percentage of all reported assaults are represented by those cases. As well, the terms 'rape' and 'sexual assault' are often used interchangeably, especially when comparing studies, and it is not clear that they are always synonyms for each other.

Nevertheless, the FBI data on excluded DNA is as close to hard statistics that I've found on the rate of false accusations of sexual assault.

Where do the other figures come from and why is there reason to doubt them? Let me consider the two statistics that I have encountered most often.

"Two percent of all reports are false."

Several years ago, I tried to track down the origin of this much-cited stat. The first instance I found of the figure was in Susan Brownmiller's book on sexual assault entitled "Against Our Will" (1975). Brownmiller claimed that false accusations in New York City had dropped to 2 percent after police departments began using policewomen to interview alleged victims.

Elsewhere, the two percent figure appears without citation or with only a vague attribution to "FBI" sources. Although the figure shows up in legislation such as the Violence Against Women Act, legal scholar Michelle Anderson of Villanova University Law School reported in 2004, "no study has ever been published which sets forth an evidentiary basis for the two percent false rape complaint thesis."

In short, there is no reason to credit that figure.

"Forty-one percent of all reports are false."

This claim comes from a study conducted by Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University. Kanin examined 109 rape complaints registered in a Midwestern city from 1978 to 1987.

Of these, 45 were ultimately classified by the police as "false." Also based on police records, Kanin determined that 50 percent of the rapes reported at two major universities were "false."

Although Kanin offers solid research, I would need to see more studies with different populations before accepting the figure of 50 percent as prevalent; to me, the figure seems high.

But even a skeptic like me must credit a DNA exclusion rate of 20 percent that remained constant over several years when conducted by FBI labs. This is especially true when 20 percent more were found to be questionable.

False accusations are not rare. They are common.

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.

As long as there are kids involved, the parents should not intentionally put them in the middle. Or use them as weapons against the other parent. The OP intentionally kept the kids' stuff to get at the X for not giving her stuff that belonged to her, from what I understand. This is totally wrong. The kids should be left out of it as much as possible. This makes about as much sense as when my X kicked me out when our D was about 4 months old but wouldn't let me take the bottles or formula that *I* bought her. Why make the kids pay for our mistakes???

--------------------I tried being normal once. Worst five minutes of my life.

It is obvious to me why you people are divorced. You focus on the wrong issues even when the issue you ironiously continue to focus on has been adressed by the thread-starter. I have acknowledged the error of my thinking. I agree with the notion that my plan THAT I NEVER ACTED OUT TO THE FULL EXTENT was terribly wrong. I vowed never to think nor act in the manner again.

Done. Move on!!!

I will say this one final time and "no longer" post here...

The question was and still is WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT MY X WHO CONTINUOUSLY BREAKS OUR COURT ORDER?

Now, to the psycho GB father - what does this thread have to do with rape or accusations of rape????

You want to know something? I WAS sexually assaulted by my husband. I never pressed charges. I still, through all this continued abuse HAVE NOT PRESSED CHARGES! Why is it that my simple question must be barraged with continued accusations of falsely charging my abusive x with bullcrap?

I cannot make this stuff up. My life is filled with harassment and verbal and emotional abuse every single week. I do nothing legally about it yet my thread here is filled with people and their issues, not mine!

You got an issue? Start your own darned thread and get outta mine unless you have some help for me!!

Oh yeah, and get a life! I've been going thru a divorce for 6 months and am almost done. Once it's over and I no longer need advice (advice I will cease from seeking from the regulars over here)I will "no longer" need to post here. Yet you all seem to have been divorced for years and still dwell on it.

nolonger, being angry with some people on a website is not going to help you "get over it". Using your children as pawns in a game against your X might make you feel better, but it isn't helping the kids any. You have every right to dislike anyone on here you choose. But, we also have the right to voice our opinions, or did you miss that on the first page?

AS for getting a life, most of us have one. I am very happily remarried to a wonderful man. And if I choose to post in "your thread" about it, I will.

You tried to use the kids possessions against your X and it backfired. As it damn well should have. You are angry because people see through your BS and also see that you are willing to risk hurting your kids to get back at your X.

Divorce is never easy. Especially when one or both of the parties play childish games. If you stop those, you will get through it with some hair intact. You can't stop him, but you can control your reaction to him.

I hope you have a wonderful life with very happy children in the near future, along with getting your belongings back from your X. I don't wish ill to anyone, I just wish people would stop screaming abuse so darn much. I was abused in every way possible by my x. I chose to press charges eventually, because it was the only thing left to do. If you choose not to do anything about it, you might as well send him an email telling him to keep on keeping on.

--------------------I tried being normal once. Worst five minutes of my life.

Do you have a courrt order barring your D12 from entering your home ? If not, then a court order was not broken when your daughter entered your home (with the code that , presumably, you gave her !)

Is the divorce final ? If not, why don't you go to the marital home and get your stuff ? [/quote]

I didn't say it was domestic violence. It's domestic abuse. I did go to the marital home to get my stuff. It's no longer there! That was the question - what do I do about that?

Truth is, I asked that question 3 abuse incidents ago. I've got bigger problems now and stuff is just stuff. I can let that go.

For now, though, I refuse to live my life with constant (twice daily) harassing text messages and emails that require simple yes or no answers that are filled with hate and rage not only against me, but my mother, brother, dad, sister. Sure, a simple answer would be to ignore it and for the most part I do. But when the problem is trying to schedule Christmas visitation, I am forced to read through all that crap just to be able to negotiate the holiday! I should not have to do that. Especially when this man has previously threatened to drown me in a toilet - a crime a man up here was recently convicted for killing his wife. I take verbal assaults very seriously. I'm sure the dead wife was previously threatened verbally and no one took her seriously either.

I wish society would get their head out of their asses. [/quote]

*********************************************************

The point is..........you are complaining , in this......the DV/DA forum, about your 12 yo daughter entering your home with the code you gave her........that is not DA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If he can be in your driveway to pick up the kids without violating the RO........he didn't enter your home, your daughter did....to get her stuff......hence no violation.

We are paying attention to the question at hand. You don't seem to like the answers so you are trying to blame forum members for not "getting it." We get it just fine......it seems that you do not.

Therefore, whatever she states should be regarded with caution and suspect due to her repeated lies, misinformation and posts in multiple names along with just being an "icky" type subhuman.

Domestic violence: Not Always One SidedMention of domestic violence immediately brings to mind an intimidating male batterer. But a 2007 article shows that the problem — also called intimate partner violence — is often more complicated and may involve both women and men as perpetrators.

Nearly 11,000 men and women, a representative sample of the American population ages 18 to 28, participated in a national survey. They were asked the following questions about their most important recent sexual or romantic relationship:

How often in the past year have you threatened your partner with violence, pushed him or her, or thrown something at him or her that could hurt, and how often has your partner done that to you?

How often in the past year have you hit, slapped, or kicked your partner, and how often has your partner done that to you?

If there has been any violence in your relationship, how often has either partner suffered an injury, such as a sprain, bruise, or cut?

Almost 25% of the people surveyed — 28% of women and 19% of men — said there was some violence in their relationship. Women admitted perpetrating more violence (25% versus 11%) as well as being victimized more by violence (19% versus 16%) than men did. According to both men and women, 50% of this violence was reciprocal, that is, involved both parties, and in those cases the woman was more likely to have been the first to strike.

Violence was more frequent when both partners were involved, and so was injury — to either partner. In these relationships, men were more likely than women to inflict injury (29% versus 19%).

When the violence was one-sided, both women and men said that women were the perpetrators about 70% of the time. Men were more likely to be injured in reciprocally violent relationships (25%) than were women when the violence was one-sided (20%).

That means both men and women agreed that men were not more responsible than women for intimate partner violence. The findings cannot be explained by men's being ashamed to admit hitting women, because women agreed with men on this point.

The authors say they have no intention of minimizing the very real problem of serious domestic violence — the classic male batterer. The survey did not cover the use of knives, guns, choking, or burning, and it was not concerned with the kind of situation that can drive a woman to seek shelter outside the home. The view of the authors is that most intimate partner violence should not be equated with severe battering. Domestic disputes that turn physical because of retaliation and escalation do not have the same causes or the same consequences as male battering. Couples counseling is generally regarded as ineffective for batterers, but if the violence is moderate and the injuries are minor, both partners are involved, and they want to stay together, it makes sense for a therapist to work with both of them.

Do you have a courrt order barring your D12 from entering your home ? If not, then a court order was not broken when your daughter entered your home (with the code that , presumably, you gave her !)

Is the divorce final ? If not, why don't you go to the marital home and get your stuff ? [/quote]

I didn't say it was domestic violence. It's domestic abuse. I did go to the marital home to get my stuff. It's no longer there! That was the question - what do I do about that?

Truth is, I asked that question 3 abuse incidents ago. I've got bigger problems now and stuff is just stuff. I can let that go.

For now, though, I refuse to live my life with constant (twice daily) harassing text messages and emails that require simple yes or no answers that are filled with hate and rage not only against me, but my mother, brother, dad, sister. Sure, a simple answer would be to ignore it and for the most part I do. But when the problem is trying to schedule Christmas visitation, I am forced to read through all that crap just to be able to negotiate the holiday! I should not have to do that. Especially when this man has previously threatened to drown me in a toilet - a crime a man up here was recently convicted for killing his wife. I take verbal assaults very seriously. I'm sure the dead wife was previously threatened verbally and no one took her seriously either.

I wish society would get their head out of their asses. [/quote]

*********************************************************

The point is..........you are complaining , in this......the DV/DA forum, about your 12 yo daughter entering your home with the code you gave her........that is not DA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If he can be in your driveway to pick up the kids without violating the RO........he didn't enter your home, your daughter did....to get her stuff......hence no violation.

We are paying attention to the question at hand. You don't seem to like the answers so you are trying to blame forum members for not "getting it." We get it just fine......it seems that you do not. [/quote]

There is an RO in the court order banning either of us from going to or even driving by the other's home.

HE VIOLATED THE COURT ORDER. NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE OR BELIEVE ME.

I HAVE AGAIN RECEIVE THREATENING AND HARASSING EMAILS AND TEXTS FROM HIM THREE TIMES TODAY.

HIS LAWYER WILL SOON BE THE 2ND ONE OF HIS TO FIRE HIM AS A CLIENT FOR BEING NON-COMPLIANT AND ABUSIVE NOT ONLY TO ME BUT TO THEM AS WELL.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME BEING A SOCIETAL PAIN IN THE ASS.

THIS IS ABOUT A MAN WHO VIOLATES A COURT ORDER AND GETS AWAY WITH IT TIME AND TIME AGAIN.

I am not drinking. I'm going to wake up at 7 and lift weights like I did 3 other times this week. What about you?

Your post is simply more insult to injury. What are you thinking posting such a rediculous reply?

I am scratching my head with the all of this. I asked a simple question and suddenly I am the poster child of those who cry abuse.

If I end up dead, or my kids end up hurt. Some of the blood is on yours and the rest of society's hands.

People like you who not only don't take verbal threats seriously, but mock the innocent victims of abuse more mild than news-worthy are responsible for the lack of help available to those who are smart enough to recognize they are potentially the next news worthy victim.

No matter, I have you in my prayers that you are enlightened and that there is some relief from the obvious strife in your life that provokes you to bother the innocent victims of domestic abuse.

I knew I couldn't hold my tongue...I have a problem with injustice, but this being my own thread, I feel I have the right to correct the uninformed and guide them to the right path.

I still think most on this board are divorced people with real problems that for years they project onto others, but that doesn't mean I can't keep them in my prayers.

Jesus specialized in socializing with the unsociable.

Forgive me for being angry earlier. I forgive you for being completely ignorant and decided that if this simple question is getting attention like this, then I must use it to educate those who are not aware.

Nolonger...you need to motion the court (or call the police) each time he violates the RO

We are just saying that you will be better served reporting actual violations, like the threatening emails of today, than the incident which you described in your OP of the thread....where your daughter entered your home.

I understand that you felt violated by that, but everyone here is trying to tell you that a court will not agree that he violated the RO there by asking your daughter to go in and retreive her belongings.

That doesn't mean that no one believes that he is a creep who has pulled a lot of crap. In this one incident, he acted appropriately and you have overreacted.

I think you would be able to get better advice on the other issues if you devoted a new thread to something specific, like............ the CO says xyz and today he did "z".....what should I do next ?

[quote]You guys are certainly correct. I should not have held their stuff hostage. SO very luckily for me, my plan was not outed. Nobody knows that I attempted that game, and I will never try such a thing again.

[quote]Nolonger...you need to motion the court (or call the police) each time he violates the RO

We are just saying that you will be better served reporting actual violations, like the threatening emails of today, than the incident which you described in your OP of the thread....where your daughter entered your home.

I understand that you felt violated by that, but everyone here is trying to tell you that a court will not agree that he violated the RO there by asking your daughter to go in and retreive her belongings.

That doesn't mean that no one believes that he is a creep who has pulled a lot of crap. In this one incident, he acted appropriately and you have overreacted.

I think you would be able to get better advice on the other issues if you devoted a new thread to something specific, like............ the CO says xyz and today he did "z".....what should I do next ? [/quote]

Thanks for you advice, but to me when placed with all the other "advice" here, it sounds a bit hypocritical. Here I have bunch of people telling me to shut my pie hole, that I've over reacted, when I didn't react at all! I simply did nothing other than come onto a divorce board and request advice! The advice I received was to do nothing, that he violating the RO wasn't a real violation, just a perceived one, yet you tell me next time I'm violated to call the police.

When STBX told me he was going to drown me by holding my head in a toilet, then he followed me into my garage, then he broke my garage door, I did call the police. Know what they did? They called him for his side of the story, helped me fix my door and said that since he was gone and there was no longer a threat, I should do nothing.

Some people jumped all over you because you did wildy overreact in many posts about the incident you described in the OP. You describe your ex as "evil", when, in that example, he acted totally appropriately. You wanted to know what recourse you had......to his doing nothing wrong. You perceived a violation where there was none.

The incident that you discussed in the OP was NOT A VIOLATION.

I said the next time he violates the RO to report him, BECAUSE you said there were other incidents, NOT because the example from your OP was one.

I'm sorry the police did nothing that one time. Maybe they thought if you believed the threat and were afraid for your life, that you would have run in the door to the house, locked it, and called the police then.......and not stand around while your ex fixed the door.

Finz,I'm sorry to have to point this out tou you, but you are wrong twice.

The first part is, that my X did NOT have permission to go over to my house. It's stated in the court order of how to proceed in this divorce that neither party may drive past the home, stop at the home, nor go into the home of the other party without permission. I don't care if it was my actual daughter who came in with the garage code that I gave her, HE NEGLECTED TO NOT ONLY GET PERMISSION TO COME BY, HE DID NOT INFORM ME (a simple text would do) PLUS HE PUT MY DAUGHTER IN A POSITION OF GOING AGAINST THE COURT ORDER THAT SHE IS WELL AWARE OF.

I view it like asking a minor to buy cigarettes.

The second part, is my X was not the one who helped me fix the garage door!!! Where did you get that assumption!? I wrote that the COP spent 1.5 hours with me fixing my garage door! During that time, I played him audio tapes of previous threats and he STILL did not do anything!!! My lawyer said that cops police report neglected to find the garage door damage "intentional" based on my X's lies, not based on what any normal observer could surmise just by LOOKING! I DID run into my home and lock the door! That's when he broke my garage door! I called the police after I heard the loud bang of him damaging the door.

I'm gonna let this go. You walk not in my shoes. Beating a dead horse now.

Go back to page 4. I said if it's okay for him to go to your house to pick up your daughter, then going back to get the rest of her stuff is part of the same action. If the hand offs don't happen at your house, but at a neutral location, then you should write that. Forgive us for not knowing the details of your CO.

If he cannot go to your home for pick ups/drop offs, then your focus should be on that part of your story.....his car is CO'd not to be in your driveway, ever. That once he was there he sent your daughter in to get her stuff is irrelevant..unless, AS I HAVE ALREADT STATED you have an order against your daughter entering your house.

It is not at all like sending her into a store to by cigarretes. It is like asking her to pass the ashtray that is on the table next to her.

As for the garage door tale........sorry. I read "his side of the story, helped me fix my door " too quickly and thought that you said your ex fixed it. Sorry.

I had been nicely, patiently explaining things to you so that you could see that the way that you express yourself here is not clear. Going off on tangents and overreacting to things that should not be of primary importance isn't likely to impress the police or the courts.

Repeatedly insulting a whole forum of divorced people who might have been a resource for you is similarly unwise.

Good luck with continuing in the same manner...it seems to be working out real well for you.

It is just easier not to try to put your kids in the middle. Whether it was just your intention that didn't get fully carried out, or whatever. She tried to play a game, she lost and now she wants to call it abuse. Abuse is NOT having your kid walk into your fricking house. Whether he parked in your driveway or passed your house or whatever. You were going to withhold things of your kids to get at the X. When there is something more substantial than your blackmail backfiring on you, THEN you call the cops.

AS for insulting the forum? If it makes her feel better, go for it. Hopefully, while she is insulting and defending her moronic actions, she will see at least a little of how wrong she was in the first place. I doubt it, but I hope so.

--------------------I tried being normal once. Worst five minutes of my life.

Writing the question of what can I do about a violation of a court order in an abuse forum has come up more than once here. Without knowing my background nor my arm-chair expertise on verbal and emotional abuse there have been many assumptions made. I admit, I was unclear in my writing. Sorry for that. I keep a journal that is about 200 pages long and almost 3 years old. I forget what I write and where.

I'm done being bashed here for my poor judgement made in desperation to get an answer from X. An answer I still have not gotten, btw, even through the lawyers.

The question always was and remains as simple as pie "What can I do about it", and the answer is always clearly "nothing" as stated in the title of this thread.

My little vent here has turned into ugly bashing on both sides. For my part in it, I am sorry. I was frustrated to begin with and got more frustrated as it went on. Yes, I bashed because it felt good but I was also making a point. Sorry if the truth hurts. I know how you feel because your truths about me hurt as well. What hurts more is being invalidated in an abuse forum.

I'd love to publish the 200 pages of specific examples of the many different kinds of emotional abuse I have suffered. Who has time for that? For now, in the future, I beg you to give me the benefit of the doubt. I may post another question or vent about something else. Please know that what I "over react" to is not an over reaction at all. It is a reaction to the amount of abuse I continue to suffer. Little things that seem unimportant to you are merely straws on this camel's back.

I try to take each incident and force consequences on X to make him stop. Yet each incident in and of itself is never enough to bother the courts with.

All I want is a way to make the abuse stop. Divorce was not enough. Divorce made the abuse worse.

How is it that a 44 year old man can get away with such arrogance. He acts as if laws and court orders do not pertain to him and goes about his business texting, emailing and call me up screaming at me - all unprovoked.

Something is seriously wrong with the system. However, knowing that the system is made up of people with opinions such as those expressed here, it's no wonder I continue to suffer.

Maybe you continue to suffer at the hands of "the system" because you stubbornly refuse to accept guidance on how to present a coherent arguement to the court based on actual facts instead of perceived injustices............

I was going to point that out, but it seems like once she gets her teeth into she's right/we're wrong, it doesn't do any good.

And men aren't the only ones who call names and twist words. Women do it, probably more than men, because we analyze things and read more into it alot, IMO. We are more emotional usually, therefore, we react with emotion. Men tend not to. At least the ones I have dealt with. They take alot of stuff at face value and don't dig.

And saying you are a victim of abuse is not going to garner you any sympathy. You need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it. Alot of us have gone through far worse for far longer without it being our faults and we dealt with it. If you wallow in selp-pity, you will never get help. I am not saying any of this to be mean or sarcastic. It is merely the truth as *I* see it. As *I* lived it. I have scars, mental and physical ones, and they are now merely learning experiences. That is how I deal with it. Not saying it is the right way, or the best way, just the easiest way for me to do it. Abuse is thrown out way too easily as an action when it is being turned into just another word by it's meaning being abused.

--------------------I tried being normal once. Worst five minutes of my life.

I WAS referring to you, FINZ, whether that jackass was talking to you or me or anyone else. YOU ALL have been unkind here. And you know it.

I'm NOT playing the sympathy card, Beckaleigh. I had stated that I was venting. In my vent the need for background occured. I was stating facts, not looking for a shoulder to cry on. I'm a tough cookie. I'm here looking for LEGAL advice, not your pity. Which is what YOU have tried to gain in more than just this thread. I didn't ASK for your sob story, yet I've heard it more than once.

TWO years past?! How'd you like it if I told YOU to get over yourself?!

Hurts, doesn't it? Well, I haven't and I won't. Abuse scars forever. I wish you the utmost of health and well being. Please now leave me alone with your incorrect assumptions.

Also, I had since asked him for some menial stuff back (stuff I bought new that I use to make the kids lunches). He ignored my text and my email about it. Finally, my S7 asked my why I couldn't give him hot lunch in his thermos. I told him that his dad has not returned his thermos to me yet. So S7 called him to ask him to drop the thermos by my house.

I got a text from him that said, "Do not have the kids call me for you, ever."

[quote]How exactly does "There is nothing to be done about men who use name calling and twisting of words in order to discredit a valid victim of abuse." refer to me ? [/quote]

I'm sorry the truth offends you. Most of your posts show your lack of intelligence.

For instance.... your answer to my question about the above quote was to say that I insinuated that you are dumb. You are dumb if you think that talking about "men who use name calling" in any way refers to me. Have you figured it out yet, or do you need more hints ?

Finz, I KNOW you're a woman. You think you're so clever like you are trying to make me out as stupid for not writing that acknowledgement down. Truth is, the fact that you are a WOMAN is EXACLTY WHY I'M SO OFFENDED BY YOU!

If you have nothing better to do than harass my thread, GO GET A LIFE!